Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Ong San Soo Chee), Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate, symbolises the struggle of Burma’s people to be free.
She was born on June 19th, 1945 to Burma’s independence hero, Aung San, who was assassinated when she was only two years old.
Aung San Suu Kyi was educated in Burma, India, and the United Kingdom. While studying at Oxford University, she met Michael Aris, a Tibet scholar who she married in 1972. They had two sons, Alexander and Kim. On March 27 1999, while Aung San Suu Kyi was in Burma, Michael Aris died of cancer in London. He had petitioned the Burmese authorities to allow him to visit Suu Kyi one last time, but they had rejected his request. He had not seen her since a Christmas visit in 1995. The government always urged Suu Kyi to join her family abroad, but she knew that she would not be allowed to return.
Aung San Suu Kyi had returned to Burma in 1988 to nurse her dying mother and was immediately plunged into the country’s nationwide democracy uprising. Joining the newly-formed National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi gave numerous speeches calling for freedom and democracy. The military regime responded to the uprising with brute force, killing up to 5,000 demonstrators. Unable to maintain its grip on power, the regime was forced to call a general election in 1990.
As Aung San Suu Kyi began to campaign for the NLD, she and many others were detained by the regime. Despite being held under house arrest, the NLD went on to win a staggering 82% of the seats in parliament. The regime never recognized the results of the election.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been in and out of arrest ever since. She was held under house arrest from 1989-1995, and again from 2000-2002. She was again arrested in May 2003 after the Depayin massacre, during which up to 100 of her supporters were beaten to death by the regime’s militia. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest in Rangoon. Her phone line has been cut, her post is intercepted and National League for Democracy volunteers providing security at her compound were removed in December 2004.
She has won numerous international awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom. She has called on people around the world to join the struggle for freedom in Burma, saying “Please use your liberty to promote ours”.
Aung San Suu Kyi was found guilty of breaking the terms of her house arrest after an American man, John Yettaw, swam to her house and refused to leave. She was sentenced to 18 months under house arrest on 11 August 2009.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi ‘free’ but for how long?
Information Release
Date: 13 November 2010
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) welcomes the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and respects the importance of this moment, both for her, her family and for the people of Burma.
While the ending of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest is welcome, it is also fraught, as more than 2,200 other political prisoners continue to languish behind bars in Burma’s appalling prison system. It also comes just days after the first election in Burma in 20 years, an election plagued by human rights abuses, electoral fraud and armed conflict.
Unlike Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, the door to freedom will not be opened wide with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s release, indeed, it will not even be opened a crack.
Nelson Mandela’s release came to symbolise the hope that something had finally given way and a new future for South Africa beckoned. The release of Aung San Suu Kyi is greeted with jubilation, but also suspicion and resignation. People are tired of the junta and its manipulative tricks.
“In the absence of rule of law, with the lack of an impartial judiciary and with laws that criminalise basic civil and political rights, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will continue to face the threat of re-arrest” Bo Kyi, Joint Secretary of AAPP said.
Without the release of all political prisoners, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s release must be seen as a public relations stunt, a means for the military regime to show a more humane side in the face of mounting international and regional pressure.
“Unfortunately, this small act of ‘kindness’ will allay the conscience of those in the international community who supported the elections but her release must not be accepted as a sign of positive change,” Bo Kyi said.
If the regime was genuinely interested in change, it would have already released Aung San Suu Kyi and the many other political and ethnic leaders well before the elections, and allowed them to freely participate in the political process.
The release of Daw Suu must be unconditional. “She must be free to participate in politics, free to travel, free to associate and free to speak. Without these freedoms Daw Aung San Suu will not be truly free,” said Bo Kyi.
The elections held last Sunday will not shepherd in even a semblance of democracy. The same people, who in the past have committed grave human rights violations, will continue to do so in the future, but now protected indefinitely under a Constitution that enshrines impunity.
Some of those guilty of masterminding the 2003 Depayin massacre, an attempt on Daw Suu’s life, which left 70 of her supporters dead, will be ‘elected’ Members of Parliament.
“Depayin serves as a reminder of both her fragility and her bravery. Refusing to back down in the face of violent opposition, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s unwavering commitment to a peaceful and democratic Burma ensures her popularity and cements her position as the military junta’s single greatest threat,” Bo Kyi said.
Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)